At regular intervals they boomed above the hurricane of
sound, like great bells tolling for the dead.
It seemed to Channing that he had lived through many years; that the
strain of the spectacle would leave its mark upon his nerves forever.
He had been buffeted and beaten by a storm of all the great emotions;
pride of race and country, pity for the dead, agony for the dying,
who clung to blistering armor-plates, or sank to suffocation in the
sea; the lust of the hunter, when the hunted thing is a fellow-man;
the joys of danger and of excitement, when the shells lashed the
waves about him, and the triumph of victory, final, overwhelming and
complete.
Four of the enemy's squadron had struck their colors, two were on the
beach, broken and burning, two had sunk to the bottom of the sea, two
were in abject flight. Three battle-ships were hammering them with
thirteen-inch guns. The battle was won.
"It's all over," Channing said. His tone questioned his own words.
The captain of the tugboat was staring at the face of his silver
watch, as though it were a thing bewitched. He was pale and panting.
He looked at Channing, piteously, as though he doubted his own
senses, and turned the face of the watch toward him.
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